| Good morning . Let 's look for a minute at the greatest icon of all , Leonardo da Vinci . We 're all familiar with his fantastic work -- his drawings , his paintings , his inventions , his writings . But we do not know his face . Thousands of books have been written about him , but there 's controversy , and it remains , about his looks . Even this well-known portrait is not accepted by many art historians . So what do you think ? Is this the face of Leonardo da Vinci or is n't it ? Let 's find out . Leonardo was a man that drew everything around him . He drew people , anatomy , plants , animals , landscapes , buildings , water , everything . But no faces ? I find that hard to believe . His contemporaries made faces , like the ones you see here . En face or three quarters . So surely a passionate drawer like Leonardo must have made self-portraits from time to time . So let 's try to find them . I think that if we were to scan all of his work and look for self-portraits , we would find his face looking at us . So I looked at all of his drawings , more than 700 , and looked for male portraits . There are about 120 , you see them here . Which ones of these could be self-portraits ? Well , for that they have to be done as we just saw , en face or three-quarters . So we can eliminate all the profiles . It also has to be sufficiently detailed . So we can also eliminate the ones that are very vague or very stylized . And we know from his contemporaries that Leonardo was a very handsome , even beautiful man . So we can also eliminate the ugly ones or the caricatures . ( Laughter ) And look what happens -- only three candidates remain that fit the bill . And here they are . Yes indeed , the old man is there , as is this famous pen drawing of the Homo Vitruvianos . And lastly , the only portrait of a male that Leonardo painted , " The Musician . " Before we go into these faces , I should explain why I have some right to talk about them . I 've made more than 1,100 portraits myself for newspapers , over the course of 300 -- 30 years , sorry , 30 years only . ( Laughter ) But there are 1,100 , and very few artists have drawn so many faces . So I know a little about drawing and analyzing faces . OK , now let 's look at these three portraits . And hold onto your seats , because if we zoom in on those faces , remark how they have the same broad forehead , the horizontal eyebrows , the long nose , the curved lips and the small , well-developed chin . I could n't believe my eyes when I first saw that . There is no reason why these portraits should look alike . All we did was look for portraits that had the characteristics of a self-portrait , and look , they are very similar . Now , are they made in the right order ? The young man should be made first . And as you see here from the years that they were created , it is indeed the case . They are made in the right order . What was the age of Leonardo at the time ? Does that fit ? Yes it does . He was 33 , 38 and 63 when these were made . So we have three pictures , potentially of the same person of the same age as Leonardo at the time . But how do we know it 's him , and not someone else ? Well , we need a reference . And here 's the only picture of Leonardo that 's widely accepted . It 's a statue made by Verrocchio , of David , for which Leonardo posed as a boy of 15. And if we now compare the face of the statue , with the face of the musician , you see the very same features again . The statue is the reference , and it connects the identity of Leonardo to those three faces . Ladies and gentlemen , this story has not yet been published . It 's only proper that you here at TED hear and see it first . The icon of icons finally has a face . Here he is -- Leonardo da Vinci . ( Applause ) |